Caleb
by pathseeker
Summary: A young man is transformed into a Vampire and taught the meaning of The Road of Chivalry VtM/Vampire Dark Ages


The sun was already down, Dargon set his eyes upon the empty town. He didn't know why this strange gunslinger sent for him to be here and was even more curious why the gunslinger wanted him now, at such an ungodly hour, than any other time. In battle with him, the man proved his mettle, but the thought of being around him alone, made him shudder a little even though he couldn't say why and Dargon Prieston didn't shudder easily.   
  
Dargon's mind went back to the thought of the note sent to him by the man who now summoned him as he slowed his horse to a stop, and dismounted, holding the reins to tie them to the post outside of the Saloon-Inn. He took out the note. "There is something of importance I'd like to speak to you about, something concerning your fate." The last part made him come, but it both beckoned him, and repulsed him too. He was curious, and at the same time cautious about being here, but that curiosity outweighed everything. "Maybe he can tell me about what's going on in this town, and why I've suddenly been caught up in it."   
  
He walked in, barely noticing the patrons of the saloon. The thin bartender (bartenders always seemed to be thin and frail, like it was a prerequisite to mixing drinks) was standing behind the bar absent-mindedly cleaning the shot glasses not paying much attention too much of anything. There were others, but he minded them about enough attention that he would mind a high rock that might have a comanchero or robber standing behind it. He didn't pay attention, because he didn't like saloons; they were for people that were weak of will to gamble, fornicate or drink until their eyes were swimming in red and their breaths were tinged with the smell of day-old spirit. The upstairs hall of the Saloon/Inn was dry, dry as a desert in summer. He could feel his heart quicken, and with one hand, he stroked the oak wood handle of his gun as though for assurance. With the other hand, he felt the cross dangling under his shirt, and even though his lips didn't mumble it, he could hear himself reciting the passage that his mom spoke with him the day those people came, the ones that seemed to look more real somehow. The word real was the best way he could describe it. Random images of memory swam into his conscious, of that day. And he realized something, as he stopped and took a deep breath. The feelings he had now were the same as then, they were a fear of something that could not be hit by a bullet. That sounded strange, but he had already known-seen things that couldn't be downed or even slowed by a bullet or even a chamber of bullets.   
  
This, he supposed, was where the man that was sure to be in room 12 would come into some sort of play, he was real, but in a different way, something he had trouble explaining. He could feel it. His mother, before she died years ago, called the feeling a shimmer. "...like looking into reflecting water, dear son." Like looking into reflecting water indeed, and seeing a scaly monster below the reflection. He shook his head and continued walking down the hall to the door that was supposed to mark the beginning of fate.   
  
The door opened to a room as dry and dead as the hall and to a man who sat at a chair beside an old oak table with his head bowed and his wide flat-brimmed hat covering the front of his face. He wore the same getup that he wore the day Dargon first saw him. "I'm glad you have come, please close the door." The pale man said. He had no Westerners accent, but neither was it quite that of the Easterner, his accent was really difficult, almost hard to put a finger on.  
  
Dargon slowly conceded and then asked as soon as the door clicked shut, "Yeah, I guess so. I have a whole bunch of questions for you, too."  
  
"As I thought you might have" speaking, in a low, steady tone. "Let's begin with yours."  
  
"Well, for starters, what's your name, stranger?" Dargon responded with an undertone of weariness.  
  
"I go by Caleb Hoffings, but that's not what you really want to know is it? You want to know who I am." Caleb looked into Dargon's eyes. Caleb's eyes were a pale green, like drowned emeralds.  
  
It's like he knew what he was thinking, those eyes bore deep into Dargon's soul, "Well yeah...It don't make no difference how you say it, yeah, who are you?" Dargon must've looked uneasy, a little rattled and that isn't a good way to be as a gunslinger, even when the fight doesn't concern guns, because there were always those trying to get the best of you.  
  
Caleb looked away like he understood that his deep stare was disturbing Dargon, and he didn't want to make him run away anymore than a hunter would want his kill escaping him. "The name I use now is Caleb. My real name, that is to say my birth name, has been lost in the tides of history. But I digress, I didn't come to speak such trivialities such as names; I am here to inform you of why I do what I do. Essentially what it is that makes me tick. That's what it is you want to know isn't it?" Caleb didn't pause for an answer. "Although be forewarned, some of these things I am about to tell you must never leave this room, lest a bond of trust be broken between us. If such a thing were to happen, one of us would have to be destroyed. That is my way, and of this land, it seems the same."   
  
* * * * *  
  
I am now a man of the weapon, whether it be the sword, the knife, or the gun; I have always been. I live, survive, and think by my blade. I do not do this blindly, mind you; only a fool would fight mindlessly, for those that live by the sword die by the sword as our lord says. I follow a path of chivalry. I suppose you could call me a knight of sorts, a lawman or ranger. I have no bounds, though, no home, no master, and no jurisdiction. I am the judge, I'm the jury and executioner, for my position has placed me beyond the laws of merely one land.  
  
In 1325, I was born to a small fiefdom in what is now called Germany. When I was a young man, that fiefdom that I lived in was raided. My father was beheaded alongside the dozen other villagers that stood against them, because they stood against the invaders with barely nothing save pitchforks and harvesting tools to fight with. My head was dashed with the butt-end of an axe as I was trying to hide my younger sister. The last thing I saw as my mind swirled into unconsciousness with the look of sheer terror on my sister's face as one of the barbarians ripped her clothes from her, and I knew what they were planning. It was her 8th and last birthday and even though I was of 17 years and in the prime of my manhood, I felt powerless against these invaders.  
  
I awoke days, perhaps even weeks, later inside a stone sarcophagus. I felt changed somehow, my body felt stiffened, yet more pliable than ever. All of the softness of my body had went away and had been replaced by the brawn and sinewy flesh, like that of a well seasoned warrior. My senses had seemed to have tripled. I could hear my heart beating within my chest, my blood running through my veins. Inside the sarcophagus, even though it was pitch dark save the few bare splinters of light eminating from the corners, I could see everything: the inner workings of the sarcophagus lid; the cracks and faults in it, even the surface texture. Most of all, it seemed someone was waiting outside, someone waiting quietly. With all my strength I pushed the lid and I began to feel my blood burning inside of me, and the lid moved. I realized as I pushed the lid off of the sarcophagus, that it would have taken the strength of six normal men to do what I had just finished doing. What was I? Had I become some sort of a monster? Was I dead, and in limbo or purgatory? These questions came to me, gnawing at my mind like jackals at a feast as I climbed, bewildered and a little scared, from the deathbed of stone. All these questions coming to a halt when I smelled something warm and familiar. It smelled like blood, but I unconsciously recognized it as much more, like everything I ever wanted rolled into one thing. I saw the blood and my eyes focused on it, not where I was, not the woman holding it, nothing but it. I took it instantly and drank of it deeply like a man walking in a desert for days would have drank from an oasis. Warmth flooded my body and I felt and knew only what I could vaguely describe as the heaven the padres that wandered into my village spoke about.   
  
As I was beginning to reach the bottom of the crystal pitcher, I began to see my dead family in the reflection of the blood, slaughtered and leaning against each other as fires of the burning huts raged behind it. I screamed and threw the pitcher, it shattered as it hit the wall. It didn't stop the nightmare, and the crystal shards kept falling like the shards of my broken past. I screamed and sobbed, holding the sides of my skull as though to keep it from exploding. Endless images of that fateful night swam through my mind. The terrified screams of my mother and sister, the laughing of those men.   
  
"Why do you torment yourself? You had no power." I heard a voice say. I looked up to see a woman looking down at me. She was slightly muscular and taller than I. Even though her face was war torn with scars, she was strikingly beautiful. She wore the armor of the knights that I only heard stories about and never seen at that age.  
  
"Who are you?" I asked, blood-tears drying on my face. I tasted the tears and followed my last question with, "What have you done to me?"  
  
"I am your sire, your mentor." She didn't smile, but her eyes spoke a subtle compassion. "And I have given you a second chance." She paused to touch my face. Her fingers were cold to the touch, even in this dank and bare room. They made me wince and jump back, startled. "In a sense I have made you a monster, but you still have a choice. You have the choice to be a monster of destruction and continue to reap more pain, or a monster of justice to stop other innocents like your family from feeling pain from other monsters. I know the death of your family burns inside you, but the fire of the past need not burn you. You were helpless and it wasn't your fault what happened to your family."  
  
I looked down, exhausted from the angst and pain I felt, 'would this feeling ever end' I thought.  
  
She continued: "You are no longer helpless though, and that fire can be used, can be tempered with the blood of Cain that burns inside of you, also, now. You can use these to avenge the weak like you were, and destroy the wicked."  
  
I stayed my sobbing and looked up, she had drawn a sword, and was holding the handle toward me. "Hold out your hand." She said.  
  
I held out my hand and took the sword, a little unsure. I no longer felt so powerless.  
  
"This is a sword. It can destroy senselessly and out of greed, or it can serve justice through the strength of the wielder and protect the meek through the mercy of the strong. This is much like you and I are, our natures. We are predators, there is no doubting that, and we are strong, but we have a duty and if we uphold it, than the glory and the kingdom is ours. If our duty is lost, than we are lost eternally." She said coldly, yet strong like a commander to his troops. "With this sword forged in your pain, and in the blood which I have bestowed upon you, stand and feel helpless no more."   
  
I did so, I suddenly realized what I must do, the road will be long, and hard but it was my destiny, and the sadness would not end, but it would be tempered as my new mentor said to me.  
  
She taught me many other things. She trained me in the way of the blood. To never let it master me, but to be like one with it. The dangerous trivialities others of my kind play. I learned I had become what others called vampire, and I was of a feared lot, so I couldn't use my gift so openly. Of course, the thing that I will carry with me until my destruction will be the ever prevalent code of the knight. I don't remember her name, it has been obscured by the thousands of other names that passed through my unlife. But I will forever remember her and the second chance I was given to set right the present. 


End file.
